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imovie crashing 4k

When I save a 4k (2minute) project from iMovie on my MacBook Pro, my computer crashes in two ways: Either the whole machine hard restarts with a message saying there was a problem, or iMovie does not save the file corectly before hooking up with spinning ball. OS 10.15.5. I have 80gb free on hard drive.


All footsge shot in either 2.7k or 4k with a Lumix G85 and GoPro. Imports fine and edits fine, just exporting it crashes. Cant be good? Any advice welcome! Cheers.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 12, 2020 3:18 AM

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Posted on Jul 13, 2020 8:06 AM

4k at 25fps should work O.K.


You could try lowering the bitrate from the custom settings and see if that makes any difference.


Also, try booting up in Safe Mode (see Finder menu for instructions) and, after everything loads, immediately shut down and reboot in normal mode. Sometimes that clears out conflicts that cause crashing problems.


-- Rich

13 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 13, 2020 8:06 AM in response to Motoeuro

4k at 25fps should work O.K.


You could try lowering the bitrate from the custom settings and see if that makes any difference.


Also, try booting up in Safe Mode (see Finder menu for instructions) and, after everything loads, immediately shut down and reboot in normal mode. Sometimes that clears out conflicts that cause crashing problems.


-- Rich

Jul 17, 2020 7:39 AM in response to Motoeuro

Yes, it never hurts to delete preferences. So try that procedure again.


Also, try resetting the system management controller as I mentioned in an earlier post.


You have a conflict somewhere on your Mac. Here are a couple of other things to try:


Try opening iMovie in a new user account, either one you create or by using the Guest account on your Mac. See if iMovie works properly there.


Try doing a First Aid scan from the Disk Utility app on your Mac.


All else failing, try redownloading iMovie from the online app store. To do that, move your current iMovie app from the Applications folder to the trash, but do not empty the trash. Then go to the app store, sign in, and navigate to

your Purchases folder and redownload iMovie. If for some reason you can't get a new download, move your old iMovie app from the trash to the Applications folder.


Hopefully you can isolate the conflict with one of the above.


If nothing works, then you might consider calling Apple Support and talking to one of the savvy techs there. They have the capability of remotely accessing your computer. Click on the Contact Support item in the upper right hand corner of this screen. Navigate to a place where you can input your telephone number.


Good luck with this.


-- Rich

Jul 12, 2020 8:42 AM in response to Motoeuro

Crashing can be caused by a number of things. Just need to try some diagnostics.


iMovie does not support 2.7k or 4k 60fps. That might be the problem. iMovie does support 4k 30 fps and 1080 60 fps.


Or, there might be a corrupt preference causing the crash with your 4k movie. That can happen. Try deleting preferences. Opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and select to delete preferences in the box that

appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if you can share out without crashing.


Another possibility is that there is corruption confined to that one project. Try creating a new project and put your 4k clip into it as the first clip added. Then see if you can share out. If still no luck, it might be a clip that is corrupt, in which case expand out your timeline and slowly scroll through it, looking for white flashes, black frames, artifacts or any other signs of corruption. Cut out any that you find and try again to share out.


In case it is a library issue, try opening iMovie in a new library and creating your project in the new library. Hold down the Option key while opening iMovie and select to create a new library from the box that appears. Try to share out your project from there.


There are other things that can be tried as well, such as opening in Safe Mode and immediately shutting down after everything loads, or opening iMovie in a new user account.


-- Rich

Jul 13, 2020 1:12 AM in response to Rich839

Thanks for this Rich, I will go through this part by part. To clarify, the project is 4k at 25fps as this was the first clip added to IM. I would say 50% of the time it crashed when exporting, I use 'custom' setting with 'better quality' at around 39 bits per second.


I also have an issue from time to time, when IM 'successfully' exports, I close the message and quit IM, but it hangs up and becomes unresponsive - Application not responding type of thing. This has happened many times on different projects.


Anyway, I am going off track, thanks for your input I will try these suggestions, Cheers :D


Jul 17, 2020 4:24 AM in response to Rich839

- Rich, this is interesting you may be able to help (again please!). Still having bother with hard / soft crashes when saving from iMovie However, if I boot in Safe Mode then shut down, restart and go directly to iMovie and save the 4k project, it works fine :D


However, using the MBP normally through the day then opening iMovie to edit is fine, but exporting footage, always does a hard crash-out.


Does this narrow the issue? I have now finished the project so I will back-up the ‘layered’ iMovie files and that’s it done for another few weeks before I start on a new project, again in 4k.


Good opportunity to zap preferences etc?


Cheers!
 Dave

imovie crashing 4k

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